Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning, distinguished members of the Official Languages Committee. I would like to thank you for inviting the Ontario French Catholic School Trustees Association to appear before you this morning to discuss the issues and needs of Ontario French Catholic schools. We hope that our presentation and the recommendations we are tabling today will allow you to better understand our challenges and assess the effectiveness of government programming aimed at supporting the sustainable development of minority school communities all across Canada.
The AFOCSC is the political voice of school board trustees who represent Francophone Catholic voters in Ontario—in other words, rights holders under both section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867.
The French language Catholic education system is a voluntary system primarily supported by French-speaking parents in Ontario and fully funded by the Government of Ontario. Sections 23 and 93 confer dual rights to Francophones studying in Catholic schools through their status as a minority: the right to a Catholic education and the right to an education in French. Protection of these two guarantees was conferred by Parliament of Canada and originates in legislative provisions passed by the House of Commons and confirmed over the years by a number of Supreme Court rulings.
The AFOCSC represents the largest system of Francophone schools outside Quebec. It includes eight boards and five French-language Catholic school administrations that provide services to more than 75% of Franco-Ontarians in their schools. At the present time, almost 70,000 students are currently studying in French-language Catholic schools. Our school system includes 246 elementary schools and 48 secondary schools that are distributed across the different regions of the province.
Our students achieve better scores on tests administered by the Education Quality and Accountability Office—or EQAO—than do students from English-language schools. Our 6th grade Francophone students exceed provincial standards in all areas of assessment be it in literacy, numeracy or mathematics.
Since their inception, Ontario French-language school boards have innovated in order to develop the kind of made-to-measure solutions that would allow them to achieve the success they currently enjoy.
Despite a lack of funding from the Government of Ontario for pre-school programs, our boards decided to offer full-time junior and senior kindergarten programs so that pre-schoolers would have an opportunity to master the French language and increase their chances of scholastic success. Indeed, our boards were quick to note the extent of early assimilation in preschool-aged children. There is no doubt that this problem is exacerbated when no French-language daycare services are available.
French-language school boards in Ontario have recognized the importance of early and proactive intervention by providing full-time programs for four- and five-year olds. These same boards also believe that early intervention with very young children is critical for the recruitment, integration and retention of the children of rights holders and newcomers in their schools. It is crucial for the development of our school boards that there be recognition of the need to fund daycare and early childhood education services.
Thus French-language Catholic schools are offering parents a system of education of comparable, if not superior, quality to that currently available in the English-language system.
In spite of that success, the sustainable development of French-language schools in Ontario is not a given. Too many Francophones are drifting into the English-language system because of some of the benefits it provides.
Despite all the efforts made by the French-language Catholic and public systems, only 54.4% of children of rights holders attend French-language elementary or secondary schools, according to figures from a 2006 Statistics Canada study. Therefore, more than 52,000, or 44%, of children of rights holders are attending English-language schools. French-language schools are therefore suffering annual losses in their target population to English-language schools, particularly high schools. A narrower range of course options available at secondary schools in the French-language system is certainly one of the reasons that students “drop out” linguistically and culturally, or drop out of school altogether. A little later, we will also address the importance of high-quality school facilities.
The latest information from the Ontario Ministry of Education regarding secondary school options shows that 51 options are available in the French-language system, as compared to 101 in the English-language system. Still today, four out of ten students who start out at a French-language school switch to the other system and obtain their Grade 12 diploma from an English-language school. So, it is clear that we face a serious retention problem in our schools.
If French-language Catholic boards were able to provide secondary level programming comparable to what is available in the English-language system, there would be less desire on the part of 33% of their students to leave bastions of the French-language in favour of English-language high schools. Rights holders under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and section 93 of the Constitution Act, 1867, make a conscious decision to send their children to the educational system of the majority, because minority schools are not easy to access, despite the superior quality of education offered in French-language Catholic schools. Unfortunately, each family lost to the English-language system represents the assimilation of an entire Francophone bloodline.
Over the years, the AFOCSC has defended the specific needs of French-language communities and succeeded in raising awareness among political decision-makers and the machinery of government of the reality and higher costs of providing French-language education to a minority community. In the last 10 years, new reference levels have been proposed with a view to calculating the actual costs of delivering quality education and, despite increased funding, the French-language education system is still not comparable to the education system of the majority.
The AFOCSC also wishes to emphasize that improving access to schools is critical: school transportation and school construction are the pillars of sustainable development and continue to be the main funding challenges. As regards accommodations, the formula used to determine funding for the construction of schools is based on a reference standard of 500 students for an efficient school. Since the majority of French-language schools in Ontario do not have that many students, the funding they are provided does not enable them to be competitive. The issue here is adequacy.
We often cite this example, which is a clear illustration of the challenges we face: a French-language school board in Ottawa that was building a new secondary school managed to secure funding of $16 million, although this amount was not enough to buy the lot and build a competitive school, even a modest one. Ironically, the English-language school board had also purchased a lot to build a new school in the same neighbourhood, but had received $32 million for its new secondary school. How will French-language schools ever be able to compete with English-language schools in terms of course offerings, sports facilities, gymnasiums, workshops, and the like, if the funding provided is insufficient to offer these features to Francophone students?
There is not always equity between the education system of the majority and that of the French-language minority in Ontario. The adequacy of programs and services for official-language minority communities must be a priority for the federal government. Our schools are not currently comparable to those of the majority—nor are our programs and services.
In closing, we believe it is time the Department of Canadian Heritage considered the status of school management in official-language minority communities. The federal government must take responsibility for ensuring the sustainable development of official-language minority communities, by making school facilities a national priority in its infrastructure program and entering into agreements with the provinces on school management, as a means of enhancing programs and services and funding daycare services for children aged 0 to 5. Indeed, all official language stakeholders should look more closely at a key area such as early childhood education, as a means of ensuring the survival of our minority communities. The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages may want to consider setting aside resources for a Canada-wide study of the availability of daycare services to official-language minority communities.
It is our hope that the federal government will seek to ensure the adequacy of facilities, programs and services, in order to guarantee the sustainable development of French-language communities in Ontario. The current government's commitment should also be reflected in the Roadmap for Canada's Linguistic Duality. French-language education is an integral part of our vision as a Franco-Ontarian community and is closely linked to our survival. Schools are the very core of our institutional and community vitality. They must receive adequate support to ensure the long-term vitality of official-language communities all across the country.
I hope that our comments have convinced you of the importance of our educational project and that you now have a better understanding of the issues associated with developing French-language Catholic education in Ontario. In closing, I invite you to seriously consider the 13 recommendations provided in our brief. Carole and I will be very pleased to provide any clarifications, should you have questions.
If we want to continue to improve the status of French-language communities in Ontario, now is the time to act, to capitalize on the investments that have already been made, and avoid a further erosion of a system which is now at a crossroads.
On behalf of the members of the Ontario French Catholic School Trustees Association, I want to thank you for your kind attention.
